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    The scariest thing about Stephen King’s 11/22/63

    There's not much new that one can currently do to add to the variety of possible time travel metaphysics explored in literature. Try-to-improve-stuff-make-other-stuff-much-worse is a pretty reliable trope by this point. Stephen King's 11/22/63 (in addition to being a great novel) is still philosophically interesting though. 

    What 11/22/63 makes distressingly clear is that in King's universe Leibniz is correct that this is the best of all possible worlds. When the time-traveller goes back in time the universe supernaturally conspires (through standard horror movie tropes such as inanimate objects behaving as if they are agentive, people acting possessed, etc.) to prevent him from altering anything that would change the course of history or to put history back on track once he's altered it. When the time traveller finally beats the universe at this game, the results are catastrophic, and he then becomes part of the universe horrifically setting itself aright.

    For the poor time-traveller it is impossible* to improve history. The thought that one might improve history is only the result of ignorance.

    Again, this is not new stuff. It's one response to the problem of evil. What's new in King's book is that he shows Leibniz's conclusion to be itself horrific. It would be madness to worship whatever supernatural forces ensure that this is the best possible world. By realistically portraying the moral psychology of humans buffeted by these forces (made visible to humans by time travel) King is able to demolish the Leibnizian intuition more effectively than Voltaire.

    Reformation Theology can be summed up by three Gs: Guilt, Grace, Gratitude. For King, if this really were the best possible world, that's all the more reason to be ungrateful. We're not faced with a good God who can't do better than this (is that process theology?). But rather horrific processes that we can't understand making it impossible that things could be better. 

    [Notes:

    *To be fair, horror impossibility is not the kind of impossibility philosophers normally think about. In horror the impossible is sometimes actual. Noel Carroll comes closest to explaining how this works. Neal Hebert and I tried to expand on Carroll's analysis, but I think our account was overly epistemic. I'm going to teach Harman's book on Lovecraft next year and hopefully be able to rethink this.]

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    6 responses to “The scariest thing about Stephen King’s 11/22/63”

    1. Rob Gressis Avatar
      Rob Gressis

      I don’t quite think I understand what you’re claiming, Jon (probably because I haven’t read the story). If Stephen King is right, is it the case that the world portrayed in the story is the best of all possible worlds because it’s also the only possible world? Or is it the case that there could be other worlds, but God ensures that they’re all worse than this? Or, finally, is it the case that all the other possible worlds are worse than the actual world, but God ensures that the actual world is the world that remains actual?
      If it’s the second one (which, from what I can tell, it seems to be), I can see why it would not make sense to worship God — God seems to be active in making things worse than they could be. But I really don’t see how that acts as a response to Leibniz’s God, who doesn’t make things worse than they could be.

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    2. Jon Cogburn Avatar
      Jon Cogburn

      Sorry, it’s only meant to apply to a Leibnizian theodicy to the extent that it uses the idea that this is the best possible world to respond to the problem of evil or (Schopenhauer/Dostoevsky) suffering.
      One of the major horror tropes from Lovecraft is that the universe is utterly indifferent to us. King’s book is so powerful in part because the mechanisms that ensure that every other possible world* is worse than the actual one are just presented as part of the utterly impersonal metaphysical glue.
      [*That one might reach through time travel.]

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    3. Mike Avatar
      Mike

      For the poor time-traveller it is impossible* to improve history. The thought that one might improve history is only the result of ignorance.. . Again, this is not new stuff. It’s one response to the problem of evil. . . .*To be fair, horror impossibility is not the kind of impossibility philosophers normally think about. In horror the impossible is sometimes actual.
      It’s not that this is the best possible world, it seems like, but that this is the best actualizable world. There are better worlds, but you can’t do anything that would actualize one of them. And maybe additionally, not even a perfect being could actualize one of them, though he possibly actualizes them (and worse ones). I think that could be a response to the problem of evil. But even that such a being possible actualizes worse worlds is a big problem.

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    4. Robert Gressis Avatar
      Robert Gressis

      “Sorry, it’s only meant to apply to a Leibnizian theodicy to the extent that it uses the idea that this is the best possible world to respond to the problem of evil or (Schopenhauer/Dostoevsky) suffering.”
      Right, but that’s what I still can’t get. Here, it seems to me, are two ways in which this could be the best possible world:
      1. God necessarily wills the best; God examines the endless swarm of possible but non-actual worlds, sees which one has the most goodness, and actualizes it.
      2. God does not necessarily will the best. God examines the endless swarm of possible but non-actual worlds, doesn’t care about the levels of goodness in any of them, and actualizes one, W1, in which God’s own actions are the causal explanation (within W1) for why W1 has level of goodness G instead of level of goodness G+H.
      It seems to me that the King story works against 2 but not against 1. But I assume I’m missing something.

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    5. Jon Cogburn Avatar
      Jon Cogburn

      Thank you. That’s a very helpful use of the distinction between possible and actualizable. I keep wanting to wrap my head around that, but issues of 2 Dimensionalism loom so large once you include an actuality operator that it would take me a couple of months (the SEP article’s goodness notwithstanding). Some day I hope to get it.

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    6. Jon Cogburn Avatar
      Jon Cogburn

      Thanks. That’s very helpful.
      I think the correct response for the King exegete would be that you are getting out of the problem by weakening God’s omnipotence. The way you describe the set-up then seems very much like my understanding of process philosophy’s take on the problem of evil. The all good God wills the best world that she can. Assume that that’s true in King’s universe. Then the horrific, impersonal, metaphysical glue that prevents God from picking a better world is more powerful than God.
      This only really works as a literary trope because the impersonal is still sort of personal. But this is typical of horror literature’s use of what Noel Carroll calls “category jamming,” where properties that are incompatible according to metaphysics that seem natural to us end up being jammed together.* A major one of these in post-Lovecraftian horror is jamming together elements of agency/personality and elements of the impersonal. Zombies are scary in part for this reason. What’s really going on in there? In real life, certain forms of disability involving dimenentia are terrifying in part for these reasons (see this recent Andrew Sullivan post: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/09/05/you-never-expect-to-get-dementia/ or Gillian Bennett’s suicide note).
      *Thus, every Levitical prohibition.]

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